Carma's Potty Journey...

We have been traveling on this potty journey for a while now (almost a year to be exact.. on and off) we have we still have a long way to go, but here is a milestone.. SHE GOT THE PEE part down! and kind of the pooping, but I think I have to prepare myself for a LONG road. She holds in her poop, she can hold it in for days. It started out as a control thing and now after 7 months of holding it in on and off it seems it is actually physiological. So..... I have to be patient (NOT my strongest virtue). I have cried quite a few tears over this and I just have to let it go and know that she probably wont be in diapers when she is 12. (I HOPE!)

Here is the game that I made for her to help her in her journey. When she went pee-pee she got to move one space, when she went poopy she got to move three spaces. (she only pooped 5 times the entire game). We finally had to give her max of three spaces a day for pee after the first few days. She is REALLY good at peeing though, she can hold it forever. This is probably way too much info, but it is good journaling for me.
Along the way in the game she landed on different spaces which included a friends house, a dollar store present, Mcdonalds and the end was the infamous "Tigger and Pooh house". I posted a video of her asking for it about 4 months ago... I merged the video's and am trying to post them, but the file is too large. I will post it later when I shrink it. She is funny and VERY PERSISTENT!
I was so happy for her when she finally got to open it.

Andrew and Brittany's Wedding

My Brother in Law, Andrew was married Dec 27 in the Portland, Oregon Temple. We weren't able to go since we were having horrible snow storms here and it wasn't safe enough to drive. I am so sad we missed it. I am excited to have Brittany in the family! She is such a cutie! There reception was Jan 3 and I am just now posting about it. The reception was beautiful, Darlyn, my MIL, is a pro at putting a reception together. This IS her 8th child to be married (only three more to go). The family is getting HUGE! I love it. Me, Cynthia, Stewart, Natalie and Rachelle helped in the kitchen. April made the most delicious cakes! Dang that girl makes good cakes!!
Ken was there to make sure all the food tasted great.. thanks Ken! hahahaha Jon and Michael were watching the kids.
This video is Carma and Alec dancing. They are so cute together.

Wyatts Blessing and other cute photos

My sister Dana took these adorable pictures. Thanks Dana! I love these!!!
Wyatt is the cutest! He is so sweet and easy going. He honestly never cries unless he is hungry.. or really bad gas. (He is so gassy, Poor baby takes after his papa that way too... tee hee. ) But other than that he is just smiley and coos. I love when I am not paying attention to him and I look down to see him staring at me, just patiently waiting for me to look at him. And the smiling while he is nursing is so sweet.
He is a chubbers, he weighed 14 lbs 3 weeks ago (at 9 weeks) I am sure he is bigger now. I LOVE chubby babies.

So many things to post about where to start...

I guess I will start at the family Christmas party. This family is HUGE, as I always mention. Every year we do a Christmas party at the Stake Center. We usually have a talent part but this year it was hilarious. Michaels cousin, Holly, and her hubby, Casey, were in charge and they put together a variety show. Casey... (who is crazy hilarious!!! or should I say crazy and hilarious) dressed in rediculous outfits between acts. I didnt get a picture of all the funny things he did during but here are a few: my favs: he was the Little Mermaid, wearing a red ridiculous red wig a half shirt (hairy belly hanging out and everything) laying on a bean bag singing "Part of your world". It was so funny I thought I would pee my pants, but here is the funniest thing, the little girls were in AWE! They loved it, not b/c it was funny, they loved that princess up there. They didn't care if she had a hairy belly.
He also did Napoleon Dynamite, Nacho and Incredible s. It was so funny. The entertainment was pretty impressive too. This family is so talented. I am always amazed. Several family sang, several young children played piano, some danced and our family did the Nativity.
Judson was a shepherd and Carma was an angel. She wanted to be on the stage SO bad! She wanted to go sing in the microphone and one of the cousins her age sang a song and she ran up there and wanted to do it too. Hence the picture of her peeking from behind the curtain. She is such a ham. In primary she is always in the front by the music leader, jumping around and excited. She loves being a sunbeam and the other teachers love to watch her just being Carma.

This is how much Carma loves Santa!

This was taken last year, and her love hasn't grown much fonder this year.

Merry Stinkin' Christmas

We have a family tradition, with Michaels side of the family, that all the families write a Christmas letter and everyone gets one. I finally completed ours! Grandma and Grandpa have 69 grandchildren and 67 great grandchildren. Only the married couples are "required" to do a letter. Not all of the grandchildren are married, so we end up making and receiving about 40 copies. I am not going to lie, I usually whine, moan and stress about about writing it (even though once I am working on it I enjoy it). Michael and I take turns doing it every other year. This year was so my turn and to my surprise much easier than I anticipated. I just took excerpts from my blog throughout the year and turned it into a calendar. It was so fun to go and read my blog throughout the year, I forgot how much fun we had this year and how fast Judson and Carma are growing up. And my little Wyatt was only the size of a bean 11 months ago and now he is a chubby bubbers.

The WORST part of the letter is taking the family picture. I don't know why I get in the worst mood and want to smack my entire family before family pictures, but HOLY COW! I almost backed out and said, "We just wont have a family picture this year!". But Michael liked that idea too much so I made him do it anyway. Carma is the only one in our family who enjoys taking pictures. I wanted to smack Judson, we didn't know he was making faces in EVERY SINGLE picture until we got them back. So here was the best one, glad I can laugh about it now. Oh, a funny part of the picture taking story: picture this, we were stressed out, the kids were tired and whiny and Michael and I are fussing at the kids and feeling crazy. When we were done I realized that we left "Dumbo" playing in the background and it was on the Main Menu playing that LOUD crazy Circus Music. When I turned it off it was instant relief and Michael said, "No wonder we felt like we were at the crazy circus! That music is crazy!". It was so funny and true. So MERRY STINKIN' CHRISTMAS!!

"It's not Christmas unless somebody pukes" says Michael. Well, it is Christmas at our house then. Carma woke us up puking at 4:15am as Michael was cleaning her off Judson woke up. We said "Do you feel sick" , he said "I don't think so".. not even a minute later he is puking down the stairs. Judson puked 3 times.. Michael said if they made it in the puke bowl or toilet he would pay them $5.00.. hahaha Judson made 10 bucks last night. Carma zero. The funny thing about this story is that I was enjoying the moment.. you may thing "WHAT?!". But hear me out. As the kids were at the bottom of our bed on the floor sleeping I thought it is only a few years that we will have kids to take care of. A few years that they will want to sleep in our room and love having the opportunity to sleep on our floor. A few years for us to take make them feel safe. Admittedly it was MUCH easier for me to think this since I didn't have to clean up one puke mess, I got to nurse and take care of the baby:) Thanks Michael for being so WONDERFUL and cleaning up the rotten egg smelly puke.

We have been Elved

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